Arnoud-Jan A. Bijsterveld, tilburg university
PROPOSAL TYPE
Traditional panel
Seeking
- Seeking Additional Presenters
RELATED TOPICS
- Memory
- Oral history
- Public engagement
ABSTRACT
For the commemoration of 75 years of liberation of the Dutch province of North Brabant, Brabant Remembers developed a program of activities based on 75 personal life changing war stories. This paper reflects on the selection of these stories. What were the basic principles and how did the process of selection and writing develop? How did the public engagement take shape? What choices were made and in what ways did the stories contribute to the development of the programme?
The process to select and write 75 narratives according to the techniques of storytelling turned out to be an active and creative process of collecting, reconstruction, contextualizing, and, eventually, representation.
DESCRIPTION
Between September 2019 and August 2020, the Dutch province of North Brabant tasked the Crossroads Foundation with organizing, staging, and hosting a series of events to commemorate 75 years of liberation. This campaign, named ‘Brabant Remembers’, was based on 75 Personal Life Changing War Stories that were selected with the help of the wider public. Together, these stories tell about the life changing choices individuals faced during times of mobilization, occupation, collaboration, persecution, and liberation. These stories, all set in the region, constituted the starting point for a cultural program to involve and attract a wide and varied national and international audience. Producers, artists, and policy makers were called upon to develop events, artistic expressions, and policies to engage citizens of North Brabant and (international) tourists of all ages and backgrounds to convey the impact of the Second World War and to make it tangible and understandable for younger generations especially. Moreover, Brabant Remembers aimed to use these stories ‘as an inspiration and starting point for decisions that need to be taken nowadays’ and to ‘make the link with contemporary challenges’.
This paper offers an evaluation of this campaign. To what extent did it succeed in engaging the audience in shaping the content and in sharing the responsibility in organizing events and commemorations? The paper will reflect on the possibilities and pitfalls of collecting sensitive stories and experiences while assuring veracity and historical diligence, and of applying storytelling and branding techniques to communicate life histories.
I am looking for additional presenters engaged in representing sensitive history to a wider audience in order to share experience.
If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to pass along someone’s contact information confidentially, please get in contact directly: Arnoud-Jan A. Bijsterveld, Tilburg University, [email protected]
ALL FEEDBACK AND OFFERS OF ASSISTANCE SHOULD BE SUBMITTED BY JULY 1, 2021. If you have general ideas or feedback to share, please feel free to use the comments feature below.